> What puzzles me is the last phrase - "solution de continuite" -> I simply cannot make any sense of it. What can Augustin-Louis mean?> I look forward to hear from those whose knowledge of Cauchy and his> times are more profound than mine.

"solution de continuité" is a french expression which is not often used nowadays, because it is as puzzling for Frenchmen as it is for you. To be precise, I quote my french dictionary: "interruption de la continuité (choses concrètes ou abstraites); séparation, ce qui sépare".